Edward Castronova

About

Edward Castronova wonders why vanilla ice cream is even produced in a world that knows chocolate. At Indiana University he is Professor of Media specializing in Games, Technology, and Society, and has served in the past as Director of the BS degree program in Game Design, and Chair of the Department of Media Arts and Production. Books include Wildcat Currency: The Virtual Transformation of the Economy (Yale 2014), Virtual Economies: Analysis and Design (with Vili Lehdonvirta, MIT 2014), Exodus to the Virtual World (Palgrave 2007), and Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games (Chicago 2005). Castronova’s papers at the Social Science Research Network place him in the top 1% of downloads of over 300,000 academic authors. Castronova’s game design work involves board games with a historical focus. He was born as Edward Bird in 1962, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1995, and took his wife’s name on marrying in 2000. He has two sons, two god-children, and a beagle named Tilly. Castronova thinks God is a game designer: Get to Heaven for the win.